Page 146 of Seer Prophet

While she thought about him, about what he’d said, Loki’s eyes took in the rough cut of her black hair. He realized he recognized the basic style.

“What?” she asked. “What are you looking at?”

“Your hair,” he told her truthfully. He continued to look at it, noting how different it looked on her face, how it framed her cheekbones. “I think your daughter must have cut hers to resemble yours because she missed you greatly.”

At the pain that came to her eyes, he cleared his throat.

When the silence stretched, he looked at the table by the bed. He didn’t release her fingers, but nodded towards the container of water he could see there.

“I’m thirsty, cousin,” he said. “Would you mind––”

“No.”

He felt her startle as she spoke, as if pulled from a deeper set of thoughts.

He fought to keep his light away from hers, to give her some privacy, but he wasn’t succeeding very well. Even so, he only really saw images of her daughter’s face. He felt the love that burned there, for her human daughter, and that touched him, too.

“…No, of course not,” she added, a little belatedly. Her cheeks warmed, and that time, he felt himself getting hard. “Sorry.”

She released his hand.

Finding his fingers clutching cold air, he regretted having spoken, at least until he’d had longer to touch her.

He only lay there though, watching as she leaned over to the table.

She grabbed the container of water, and he watched her arrange the straw with her small fingers before she brought it closer to him. She sat on the mattress, setting the container on the pillow near his chest, angling the straw so it would meet his lips. He found himself trying to sit up once more, but her hand found his shoulder firmly, as Mika’s had done earlier.

“No.” Her voice was as firm as her fingers. “Stay where you are, Loki.”

He reacted to her touch a lot differently than he had to Mika’s.

He reacted a lot differently to her using his given name.

Reaching up, he clasped her hair in his hand, letting out a low sound, before he knew he intended to do either thing. He started to pull her mouth to his, lost in her light where it wrapped into his, pretty much the second she sat near him.

She stopped him, clasping his wrist with her free hand.

“Drink first,” she told him.

Loki looked at her face.

He focused on her mouth before he forced his eyes closed. He could feel her light winding into his even more now. Gods. He could practically hear the heart beating in her chest.

Still, he didn’t miss the import of her words.

Nor did his mind stop reading as much into that word “first” as he possibly could.

“I am not…” He struggled for words. “This is not usual for me, either, cousin,” he told her, knowing how lame it probably sounded, and perhaps insincere.

He got a smile for that.

It made his erection worse.

A lot worse.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, her New York accent growing audible in her voice. “I bet you’re just a saint, normally, right?”

He didn’t answer, but felt his own face warm.

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